Ungendering the Fashion World
I was told recently by a manager at my current retail job that my dress code wasn't up to standards. The issue? My outfit matched the menswear aesthetic rather than the woman's, therefore I wasn’t “feminine” looking enough. This begs the question of why society finds the need to gender clothing. My outfit didn’t prevent me from doing my job and customers found no issue with what I was wearing, but somehow I was threatening the social norm of what is expected for a woman to wear. We see this toxic ideology in regards to fashion from an early age that develops the way we see gender in clothing as adults. Fashion is a self expressive to show your community who you are as a person and since companies market clothing for specific genders, this can stunt the individual growth of expression. Taking inspiration from the reading, Fashioning the nation: gender and politics of dress in contemporary Kyrgyzstan by Mohira Suyarkulova, I plan to address the topic of gendering clothing and how we can begin to bring an end to what it means to have a specific “menswear” or “womenswear”, as well as the effects of the fast fashion industry in the world.
Following the end of Soviet control in Kyrgyzstan, gender roles when it comes to traditional dress became a symbol of importance to keep the tradition alive after the Soviets attempted to suppress their culture for so many years. Under Soviet rule, Kyrgyzstan faced an anti-religious and deconstruction of patriarchal values that they once carried. In doing so, the country had to undergo a dramatic change in their culture,
“With the creation of the new states in the period between 1924 and 1938 the entire content of the national culture, including language, history, folklore, dance, and “national dress” was creatively curated by specialists-intellectuals, “specifically trained and employed to produce national cultures” (Slezkine 1994, 438). Ethnographers collected folklore and material culture artifacts, linguists standardized and alphabetized the local vernacular languages, emphasizing the differences between the dialects and ridding them of foreign elements. The content of these reified ethnic traditions was carefully separated from the global Muslim heritage (since Islam was considered backward and fanatical) and what were deemed more “authentic” national cultural repertoires were compiled.” (Suryarkulova, Page 249)
With this change that was curated by an outside party, reverting back to original customs became vastly important once the Soviets had left the country and as well what it means to be masculine and feminine. Due to this need to preserve Kyrgyz culture and identity, men were found self identifying themselves as “patriots” and attacking women who would associated with Russian men. This also brought forward a bill to ban women below the age of 22 to leave the country so that the race can be preserved. In doing so this also came out the need to give women a dress code to also preserve their “purity”. This gendered way of thinking prevents personal expression through fashion that most people like to show, hence the importance of international clothing brands starting and continuing with gender neutral clothing lines as well as trying to lose the gendered labels behind fashion.
Popular clothing brand of modern day fast fashion trends, Zara, has recently introduced a new line of clothing to be included with their brand named “Ungendered” under the TRF line they feature, where a shopper can find gender neutral basics and essentials. Being under the TRF line, shoppers will be able to purchase their gender neutral goods at Zara’s lowest price point. However, Zara has received bad reviews from this new line of “Ungendered” clothing because of the fact that they are keeping only basics which weren’t really gendered to begin with. Although they are attempting to break barriers with this line of clothing, they seem to be missing the point of what most customers mean by gender-free clothing. They are not the first to have this option made available for the consumers. American Apparel has a reputation for their own “Unisex” line where they also feature gender neutral basics. In comparison, however, American Apparel features more options in their “Unisex” line other than just plain t-shirts and sweats. This is only scraping the surface of the bigger picture when it comes to incorporating a break from the gender norms of the fashion industry. The gender neutral line that both clothing retailers feature include simple items such as t-shirts, sweatshirts and denim that take very literally what they mean by gender neutral. These basics are meant to hide any form of the conceived masculinity or femininity found in most clothing lines.
While it is a stepping stone in the attempt to remove gender from a customer's shopping experience, we still have a long way to go before it becomes a norm for society to accept genderless looks. A British department store, Selfridges, took into their own hands what it means to shop without gendered labels, by taking them out completely. They pride themselves in their “Agender” concept space shopping experience where someone can shop through fashion, accessories and beauty without gendered labels of each. The space is being designed by Faye Toogood, a London based artist whose goal is to remove the gender binary from the architecture and furnishings of the space. She created an open space where nothing will be marketed for a specific stereotype of a gender, especially when showcasing the clothing since the company decided to remove mannequins from their windows and displays.
Many who follow the fashion world want to stay in trend with what they see during seasonal fashion weeks presentations. Haute couture set the bar for what one should expect to wear to stay chic and contemporary. Unfortunately for most, any of these looks and styles they created are not easily attainable due to pricing and limited availability. Luckily for the budgeted consumer, fast fashion brands design pieces to imitate what we see in high fashion magazines and presentations. In order to obtain these looks however, fast fashion brands have been made infamous for their use of third world labor in order to keep their pricing so much lower than couture names. The ethical shopper is then faced with the decision to shop with a bargain and get the same couture looks without the couture pricing while supporting the cheap and exploitative labor. Recently, there was a video that had gone viral addressing the issue of sweatshop labor. In Berlin, there was a social experiment using a vending machine in the middle of a plaza that sold plain white t-shirts for 2 euros. Curious consumers would approach the vending machine and attempt to purchase one of these inexpensive t-shirts. However, instead of the product automatically vending, the consumer is shown a video about the ugly truth of sweatshop labor and the children who work in these conditions for little to no money. At that point the consumer can either choose to continue to purchase the inexpensive shirt, or donate the 2 euros they put into the machine. American Apparel, as mentioned, earlier is one of the rare brands in the world that refuses to use sweatshop labor in developing countries and instead keeps their manufacturing warehouses in the US, while providing a livable wage to those who work there. This is just the beginning of eliminating exploitative labor in order to decently priced clothing. Bigger fast fashion, low priced name brands such as Zara, H&M, the Gap and so on have gained their popularity and high traffic shopping due to this exploitation. This makes it difficult to attempt to either transition out of this labor or to give a livable wage better work environment to those who work in these factories.
Gender neutral clothing brands don’t just stop with the adults; there has been an increase in gender-free fashion lines created for children. This marketing for children wearing gender-free clothing is probably the most important in regards to the fashion world due to the fact that it teaches children from the beginning that it is acceptable to wear what they please and to ungender clothing. There was a viral video released recently where a young British girl examined how toxic gendered clothing can do to a developing child. She pointed out how the boys clothing promoted innovation, exploration as well as methods of self growth. She then turned the camera to the girls clothing right next to the boys and pointed out how the only thing that it promotes is the ideal to stay beautiful. This type of gendered marketing for young children can effect the way they grow and how they learn to view themselves. A few of the clothing brands that currently offer genderless outfits for children include, Tootsa, Polarn O. Pyret, Muttonhead and Gardner and the Gang. Founder of Gardner and the Gang, Kristin Nystrom started this brand in 2012 to help to remove preconceived notions of what a child is supposed to look and act like according to the societally forced gender roles. She has been heard saying that, “Children should be allowed to be free, and that should be transferred to clothes as well” which is something we all should aspire to do with our own children.
The fashion world buzzed with anticipation for Louis Vuitton’s new women’s Spring-Summer 16’ collection when they released an ad campaign featuring the young actor, Jaden Smith as the main focus of the campaign where he confidently wears the new women’s collection. Artistic director, Nicolas Ghesquiere initially featured this campaign of his new line with a solo photo of Jaden Smith modeling the womenswear collection on January 2nd, 2016 on his Instagram page where both Smith and Ghesquiere received mixed reviews for the new campaign. While half of the comments included praise for the breaking of the gender barrier of the “who can wear what” clothing, the other half immediately wanted to spread ignorant homophobic and transphobic comments. Due to the preconceived notions of what it means to be a “man” or “woman” and how men should display the stereotypical characteristics of masculinity, Smith’s modeling contribution to the ad campaign posed a threat to those masculine stereotypes where onlookers decided the best way to combat his campaign was to come up with these slurs to separate and isolate Smith away from their norms.
While Louis Vuitton has helped to contribute to the revolutionized way of seeing clothing, designers are emerging with ungendered clothing lines such as We Are Mortals, 69, Wesley Berryman, Vaquera, Nicopanda, and TILLYandWILLIAM. Each of these clothing companies and designers all have one goal in common, to remove the gender binary from their clothing and open the whole collection for everyone to use and use models of various gender identities to showcase the clothing. These fashion lines are contributing to the end of how we see clothing in the future and the notions of who should where what. The process to “ungender fashion” is a slow process that is already underway. We cannot simply make everything gender neutral or agendered, but what we can do is slowly introduce these concepts so that our younger and future generations see no issue with the future of ungendered clothing.
